This is one of the four statues on the Pont JF Kennedy in Strasbourg, one of the bridges to cross the Ill. The statues all depict workers who do hard manual labour – this is the pelleteur. His job was to clear the waterways from the silt so it would stay navigable for bigger boats. The profession died out in the 1920s.

The bridge was built in 1906 and was then called Schwarzwaldbrücke (pont de la Forêt-Noir / Black Forest Bridge). It has undergone a few name changes, some only because of the change of languages, from German to French and back). It became Pont John F Kennedy in 1965. The locals, however, favour the name Viermännerbruck (bridge of four men, in the local Alsation dialect).

FOWC with Fandango: Drudgery

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